On Becoming A Strangling
by Gema227
Summary: People often make the mistake of calling her strange. /Implied Ilse x Moritz/


**A/N: **First Spring Awakening fic, readers, so please be nice! This piece isn't as good as it could have been, but I'm in a bit of writer's block and I needed something to toggle my muse. So here it is- Enjoy

EDIT: thegirlsmiles so kindly pointed out that I spelled Ilse name wrong. Silly me...I went back and changed it for you all. So sorry about that.

* * *

Ilse knows that she is a strange person

Ilse knows that she is a strange person.

Everything about her is _different_.

Her mother said it, her father said it, her teachers said it, the girls whispered it cruelly behind her back.

_Strange_.

Oh, how she hates that word.

--

The fact that she's _strange_ never seemed to stop her father from putting his hands on her, night after night after night.

She still remembers the first time he did it.

She had been seven and too scared to move.

She wakes from her nightmares screaming, her head buried in her pillow and she tries to calm herself by remembering the one time she had fought back.

She had been ten and her father had picked her up and slammed her head against the wall.

Maybe that's why she's so _strange_.

--

The fact that she's _strange_ has never stopped the teacher from calling on her when she wasn't paying attention.

This happened often.

Ilse was never one to focus and she would allow her mind to wander.

To the trees outside the classroom window.

To the world outside the classroom window.

To the boy's school just across the courtyard, where Moritz Stiefel sat, probably not paying attention either.

She will never understand it, but something about him makes her heart start beating just a bit faster.

Is that what makes her _strange_?

--

The fact that she's _strange_ didn't keep her parents from throwing her out of the house when she was twelve years old.

She had told her mother about what her father did to her.

A load of good that did for her.

She had wandered the town for days.

Martha said that if Ilse had needed some place to stay, she could sneak her into her family's barn and they could spend the night there.

Ilse knows now that Martha needed an excuse to get away from her father.

They had been two sailors on a slowly sinking ship; still trying to play pirates as their worlds came crashing down around their feet.

Perhaps this is what makes Ilse so _strange_.

--

The fact that she's _strange _doesn't stop one of the artists from inviting her to join his community and to model for him.

She had been ballet dancing on a street corner for money.

He had been old and grizzled but she wasn't hesitant in her acceptance.

She just wanted to get off of the streets.

Heidi, an older girl she knew, had told her of what happened to girls thrown out onto the streets who weren't able to find a home.

Once you ran out of possessions to sell, you started selling the only thing that you had left.

Yourself.

Unlike the other girls, sex does not excite Ilse. It frightens her.

This must be the reason why she is so _strange_.

--

The fact that she's _strange _didn't stop her from hearing Moritz Stiefel crying in one of the forest's clearings.

It was her clearing.

She had run over to him, unintentionally frightening him.

He had a gun and it was all she could do to keep herself from yanking it away.

They had talked. About why had had run away, his grades, the pirate games they had used to play with their best friends.

She had invited him to play pirates with her.

It wasn't exactly the type of "playing pirates" she had remembered.

She couldn't say that she minded the whole ordeal though.

She liked the sound of his heartbeat. Rhythmic, steady, constant.

Most girls thought that Melchoir Gabor was the handsomest boy in the whole school.

Ilse knows different.

Surely, this has to be what makes her so _strange_.

--

The fact the she's _strange _didn't keep her from learing the news.

She had been walking to the market when she heard.

Moritz was dead.

She hadn't cried. Not one single tear.

She was Ilse and much too strong for such things.

The grave smelled like him. Of hay and notebook pages and something so subtle and so unique that she couldn't put a finger on what it was.

Except that fact that it was Moritz's scent and his alone.

She had cried at the grave.

Shrieking, screaming, calling his name till her voice grew raw and weak and her eyes were swelled shut from all her tears.

In the end, she had collapsed, her few, final tears mixing in with the dirt and turning to mud, staining her cheeks brown and allowing little clumps of soil to stick to her eyelashes.

Through the grave, she could almost hear his heartbeat.

This was what made her _strange_.

* * *

**A/N: **Oh, hooray for Ilse/Moritz! The ship of hope, is it not? Please read and review, amigos! ConCris welcomed and most definatly encouraged. Thanks so much in advance!


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